The Dark Lord's Portrait
by Spiralling-Down
Summary: Years after Voldemort's downfall, Thorfinn Rowle is stuck in St Mungo's, thought to be mentally unstable. He develops a desperate plan to bring back the Dark Lord in portrait form. Can he somehow be stopped? One shot.


**Disclaimer: Not mine in the slightest. As far as I know, JK Rowling still wants Harry Potter. Even the vague idea isn't mine - I nicked that off Alex Day (nerimon on YouTube). He said, "fanfic it," so I did.**

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><p>The man, Thorfinn Rowle, was in a room in St Mungo's. He was standing in front of a large sheet of canvas (on which he had painted the figure of a man) holding his wand out in front of him like a paintbrush and squinting. He'd been painting this portrait for months, hiding it from the Healers whenever they came in. The hardest part had been finding a wand, but he'd managed to grab one away from the corpse of a wizard who'd died in the hospital, before he was led firmly back to his room by a couple of Healers. He flicked the wand one more time, sending the last few bursts of paint across the canvas, and stood back, admiring his work. His subject's long fingers were curled around a wand made from a dark wood, and his red eyes seemed to pierce yours, even when he was still inanimate. The painter shuddered slightly at the image, and then mentally kicked himself for having doubts.<p>

He remembered the war. He'd never been anything special. Never in Voldemort's inner circle, never trusted with the most complicated missions, but always there, recognised as a Death Eater. His only two missions had been worthless and mismanaged... On the Astronomy Tower the night Dumbledore died, he had accidentally killed a fellow Death Eater, and at the end of that summer, when he'd managed to track down Harry Potter and his two comrades when they spoke the Dark Lord's name, they had wiped his memory and escaped. He winced, remembering his master's punishment on that occasion.

And then Voldemort was dead, defeated by the Potter boy, and the Death Eaters were being rounded up and sent to Azkaban. But even then he was not recognised; he was excused on the grounds of insanity, loss of mental health due to overexposure to the Cruciatus Curse. While the rest of the Death Eaters were suffering together in Azkaban, he was alone in this one little room, kept away from the other long-term patients for their safety, tortured through the patronising words of the Healers instead.

"I was working for my master," he had shouted.

"Don't worry, dear, you're not a House Elf – you are your own master. It's all over now; he'll never bother you again," the reply had come, the same every time, and always accompanied by a simpering smile.

And then there was Potter. Harry Potter, the hero of the wizarding world. Harry Potter, who Rowle had once tortured, who Voldemort had failed to kill, who had waltzed into the Auror office without so much as one scraped N.E.W.T., and who was on the front cover of every newspaper and magazine there was, loved by the nation when they should have been bowing down to Lord Voldemort instead. But in the new era, it was Rowle who would have a special place. He would be the one who deserved praise and rewards, because he was the only one who was clever enough to bring Voldemort back to power, even if the actual body of the Dark Lord had decomposed and become worm-food years earlier. Finally, he would be noticed.

These thoughts were enough to persuade Rowle. He waved his wand in a complex pattern – up, down, around in the shape of a bow, side to side – reciting the incantations he'd memorised weeks ago. Finally he lowered the wand, staring hungrily at his painting and waiting for a sign that he'd done it right. Only a moment later, the hand of the portrait gripping the wand flexed, and its fingers spread slowly out. Voldemort's shoulders rolled back and he straightened his neck, pulling his head up until he reached his full height. His red eyes blinked twice and then focused on the Death Eater.

"My Lord," said Rowle respectfully.

Voldemort sniffed, the breath rattling through his slit nostrils. "The least you could have done is paint me as my old self. You think I enjoy spending time in this body?"

Rowle was rather taken aback. He bowed his head deferentially, hoping that small gesture would be enough to appease his master. "I'm sorry, My Lord. I didn't think."

"That much is obvious," said Voldemort coldly. "However, you have done well. Having even this minimal form of life pleases me." Voldemort raised his arms, examining his pale skin carefully.

Rowle smiled, closing his eyes in relief for a moment. When he opened them again, he was horrified to see that Voldemort had completely disappeared from his frame. God. Merlin. Where was he? Rowle began to search his room, as though he thought Voldemort had hopped straight out of the portrait and was hiding under his bed. But a couple of minutes later, the elusive Dark Lord reappeared, sidling in through the side of his portrait.

"I can use Avada Kedavra on other portraits," he informed Rowle. "I just murdered the Healer who discovered spattergroit. It was most satisfying."

Soon the dead man in the painting was found by a Healer, and shortly after that, Voldemort was discovered. He had tried to send a portrait of a small girl (the first person to be revived from petrification using a Mandrake restorative) to notify the officials that Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters were at large once more. Instead, she had broken down in tears and led several worried Healers straight to Voldemort's portrait, where Rowle had shuffled around uncomfortably, saying it was all a mistake. He had immediately reverted to acting the part of the insane Death Eater who didn't know what he was thinking and had no control over his actions, terrified and manipulated into simply following Voldemort without question. At this point, Voldemort had attempted to kill Rowle for disloyalty, and discovered to his great displeasure that he couldn't.

"How am I supposed to kill Harry Potter if I'm locked inside this… canvas prison!" he raged, trying to blast the side of the frame with his wand. "It must be me who kills the boy, but I cannot. Rowle, you will have do it for me; it's the best hope we have." Rowle grimaced.

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><p>Soon the Ministry was contacted about the situation, and after a bit of thought, they quickly had a portrait of Harry Potter painted, which was placed in the very centre of St Mungo's for Harry to duel Voldemort. It seemed like a good solution, and after all, if the portrait version Harry was killed, they could always paint a new one.<p>

There followed a day of insanity, in which many patients' consultations were interrupted by Harry and Voldemort tearing into the room through the side of a painting, in the middle of an epic battle and totally oblivious to the disruption they were causing. The Healers tried to restrict them to the lobby and staircase, but their efforts went unrewarded. Even when they attempted to move every portrait in the hospital into a quieter room, Harry and Voldemort still managed to find a way in, normally through something like an animated poster illustrating the effects of some magical disease, or a small picture that had been forgotten or was attached to the wall with a Permanent Sticking Charm.

On these occasions, the witches, wizards and Healers, who had all been warned about the fight going on, would wait patiently while Harry screamed, "Try for some remorse, Riddle!" Meanwhile Voldemort would be shouting back a taunt about Harry's parents, and whatever important figure from the world of magical healing they had interrupted would yell words of encouragement and offer Harry instant cures to any ailments that might be troubling him. Eventually Harry and Voldemort would fly through the edge of their painting into a totally different room, and the particular area of St Mungo's that they'd just vacated could resume normal business.

Eventually, the battle came to a spectacular end, in an event that took place a bit like this:

"We'll give you a potion to take twice a day, and I'm sure the swelling will have gone down by this time next week. If it hasn't, come back and we'll try something else," said a Healer to a young woman whose hand was clamped over her nose, which appeared to have doubled in size.

"Thank you," she said in a muffled voice. "I didn't think it was possible to have such a bad reaction to nose-biting teacups..."

"Believe me, it's a lot more common than you'd expect," the Healer told her sympathetically.

Suddenly, Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort tumbled through the side of a portrait near the door, both brandishing their wands ferociously. The Healer gave a small sigh, covering her eyes with one hand resignedly. It was not the first time that day that she had been subjected to this.

"REMORSE!" shrieked Harry, looking a bit red in the face and panting.

A painted wizard they'd just barged out of the way tapped him on the shoulder. "I could offer you some help for your eyesight, Mr Potter, if you'll just allow me to perform some examinations," he said helpfully, beckoning towards Harry's glasses.

Harry grabbed them self-consciously and straightened them on his nose. "No, thanks," he mumbled back, before turning towards Voldemort again and ignoring the irritated wizard.

"I'm a greater wizard than you by far, Harry Potter, and I do not need to feel remorse," Voldemort retorted.

"You're not, Tom. I feel sorry for you - you'll never know how it feels to-"

"Love! Again! You and Dumbledore set so much store by it, but it will not save you from my curse. Avada Kedavra!"

"Expelliarmus!" yelled Harry at the same time. Yet again, it was this spell that saved him.

As his wand flew out of his grip, Voldemort leaned backwards, trying to catch it. All of a sudden, he tripped on the corner of the picture frame, teetered for a moment, and toppled over into the portrait behind him, which was - well - not so much a portrait as a poster, depicting the dangers of Quidditch on one side, and ways to stay safe on the other. Unfortunately for Voldemort, the area of the poster that he stumbled into resulted in him being trampled by a team of Quidditch players, before receiving two Bludgers to the head in quick succession and plummeting two hundred feet to his red-dye-splattered death.

Lord Voldemort's painted corpse was hauled to a portrait in the morgue, where a couple of sombre looking wizards were more delighted than they'd been in several centuries to finally have a dead body to perform an examination on. They quickly sliced open his stomach, tutting to each other about the state of his internal organs, and they gradually took apart Voldemort's body, disposing of each piece one by one.

Incidentally, the number of Quidditch-related injuries in the wizarding community dropped dramatically for several years after the event, which resulted in some serious consideration in the Department of Magical Games and Sports as to whether or not it was worth repeating the event deliberately. Eventually, after much discussion, it was decided that a harmless re-enactment would be held in the lobby of St Mungo's on every anniversary of the occasion, with the parts of Harry and Voldemort being played by different portraits each year. And finally, needless to say, the Healers realised quite quickly after the incident that Rowle would be better off in Azkaban after all. He was moved there within days, and he soon decided he didn't like it after all. The real life Harry, on the other hand, only discovered that he'd defeated Voldemort once more when a Daily Prophet reporter turned up on his doorstep, Quick Quotes Quill in hand, asking him questions about his most recent battle.

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><p><strong>Author's Note: OK, that got very strange very quickly, and I'm not totally sure about the ending. I suppose it's my own fault for writing it in the middle of the night. Also, no, this is not remotely serious. Not in the slightest. I'd love a few reviews though!<strong>


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